What is the ERWC about?
The European Railway Challenge marks the highlight of our season.
Each year as the summer begins, student teams from all across Europe compete with their locos in Bad Schussenried, located in the beautiful region of Upper Swabia. With more teams joining, the event is growing bigger each year!
The competition week
Teams spend the entire week leading up to the competition weekend testing and bug fixing, working day and night!
Often all-nighter are necessary to get the locomotive running. Teams motivate each other, share tools and tips. There’s a strong sense of comunity among the teams at ERWC.
The weekend gets serious:
Under the watchful eyes of many curious visitors, the teams locomotives face a series of tough challenges. Now it’s time to prove which ideas work and who’s ready to rise to the occasion.
The Challenges
The core functions a locomotive should feature are tested in the following challenges:
Autostop Challenge
This challenge is about machine vision and precise positioning. The locomotive must recognise a sign at the edge of the track autonomously. Whose locomotive then comes to a halt after a specified distance wins.
Ride Comfort Challenge
The ride comfort challenge test the locomotive’s suspension. Acceleration in each direction is measured during the train ride. Whose ride is the most comfortable, wins this challenge.
Energy Recovery Challenge
The locomotive recuperates energy when braking from full speed ahead to a standstill. Whose locomotive travels the furthest with the recovered energy wins.
Traction Challenge
At the traction challenge, it’s key to manage traction and avoid slip. Whose locomotive manages to accelerate from standstill the fastest wins.
Reliability Challenge
Locomotives need to be robust against errors in everyday business. In the reliability challenge, your locomotive needs to prove it can ride for at least 1 h.
Maintainability Challenge
How easy is it to maintain the locomotive? Teams have to disassemble and reassemble a wheelset as fast as they could to win this challenge.
To showcase their creativity and engineering skills, teams can compete in numerous optional challenges, including the following ares: aerodynamics, automatic coupling, and others.
Our first participations
In 2024, we made our debut at the ERCW as an entry level team, bringing along a host of innovative ideas.
Just one year later, in June 2025, we reached a major milestone: completing our first full competition with our locomotive. We managed to surprise the judges with a well-organized and highly professional appearance – and even secured first place in the Reliability Challenge as well as an impressive 3rd place overall!
Definitely a success we’re proud of – and one we’re determined to build on!
Life at ERWC
Imagine beeing at your favorite festival with your favorite people – just swap the live music for bolts and welding. That’s what ERWC feels like.
Nothing tastes better than a hot French press coffee after a short night – just enough to get you back on track with full energy!
Set in the beautiful surroundings you pitch your tent at the Loc.KA camp in the middle of a field, right next to the competition site.
And when it comes to food: our homemade meals easily beat any canteen dish. Good food, good mood – and the perfect fuel to keep going.